Vodka or Whisky?

Vodka or Whisky?

What makes whisky whisky? I know that it has to be distilled from grain and matured in wood for three years, etc., but I recently had some aged vodka: made from rye (so I was told), and aged in a wooden barrel (a pretty manky looking one, but let that pass)for 40 years(again, I had only the host's word for it). It was pretty terrible stuff, but it had some colour, and if I had been given a glass and told it was Moldovan whisky rather than vodka, I'd have accepted the description, going by the taste. So why was that vodka and not whisky? Is a grain spirit matured for more than three years in wood whisky if you call it whisky, or is there something more that gives it its "whiskyness"?

Vodka is "a neutral spirit so distilled, or so treated after distillation with charcoal or other materials as to be without distinctive character, aroma, taste or colour." (US-Regulation, but also a good general description).

New make spirit flowing straight from the spirit still in whisky making, however, is full of flavours and taste, as it has not been purified to such an extent that all flavour-giving compounds have been removed.

Source: "Alcohol Textbook", a "reference for the beverage, fuel and industrial alcohol industries", now in its 3rd edition, published by Nottingham U P (ISBN 1-897676-735).

In there, you can find an article on "Production of Neutral Spirits and Preparation of Gin and Vodka."

Ileach gave a good description of the difference, but just in case I add few words on vodka.

Vodka is typically made of rye (for instance in Sweden & Finland), but I have read that in Russia it is mostly made of wheat. Well, same is claimed for finnish vodka and that is not the case, so go figure. In Poland they use also potatoes for making vodka, but I think the legislation says in EU that such a product can't be stated as vodka (well at least in the Finland it is like this). There is now recently come available a finnish potato spirits/liqour, but to my understading the producer can not name it as vodka like polish can because of the legislation.

So: the distinguishing feature is the degree to which the spirit is distilled towards purity/neutrality? Which leads me to wonder about moonshiners: the Moldovan "vodsky" I tasted was "farm-distilled", i.e. moonshine, and was anything but neutral. Who's to say they couldn't call it whisky (bad whisky, to be sure), or that poitin couldn't magically turn into whisky after a few years in a barrel?

Thing is that right now the main 'species' of spirit are pretty defined as to base materials, production details, etc. But the more you go back in time, the more these distinctions start to blur .... Just to give an example: in Scotland, in the 19th century, spirits were also distilled from potatoes and people simply called it whisky .... Now we would say it was a Scottish potato vodka!